“I wouldn’t drink that toast too soon,” she said, crouching in front of her father.
“How touching,” Mordred drawled. He waved the disrupter again. “Back away.”
“Go to Hades.”
He laughed. It was an awful, cackling sound.
“Do it, or I’ll shoot him right now.”
She opened her mouth to repeat her words. He fired. Her father’s body jerked, and he made a low sound. The sleeve of his shirt was blackened, his left shoulder bleeding.
“Next one will take out his heart,” Mordred promised. “Now back away.”
She had no choice. Slowly she moved backward, her eyes darting around, her mind racing, looking for a way out of this.
“You can’t escape me. I can’t wait to see you as a collared slave. It’s always a pleasure to see the spirited ones broken.”
“At least I’m safe from you. You prey on little girls, isn’t that right, you twisted piece of—”
He shot her father again. This time in the ribs, and the pain jolted him to awareness. She saw his eyes open, then close again.
She also saw Mordred nudge the power lever on the disruptor up to the red zone. If he fired again, it would be lethal. Distracting him with taunts had obviously not been the right course. But she had to do something.
Mordred moved closer, peering at her father with interest, but angling so that he could watch her, too.
“So it is true, what I’ve heard,” he murmured. “Using that thing drains him. How convenient for me.”
She had to get him away from her father.
“How did you get here?” she asked, hoping his pride would make him answer. Anything to keep him from firing that last shot. “How did you get past the screen?”
“Past it? It is still here, we are still within it. Quite remarkable. The Coalition must have the technology. I simply went over the mountain,” he said.
She didn’t miss the smugness in his voice, even as she pondered what he’d said. The screen went all the way up and over, protecting the other side of the mountain as well? Had whoever put it there anticipated one day the tunnel would be completed and the other end would need to be screened as well?
And if Mordred had climbed over that peak and made it down unscathed, in his charred condition, smug or not, she would do well not to underestimate him.
She tensed as Mordred bent over her father. She heard him draw in a sharp breath. He was staring downward, at the tunnel floor.
The flashbow.
It lay on the ground where it had dropped from her father’s numbed fingers. Still charged, ready to fire as it had been when Lyon had spotted the light from outside. The glow of the ready bolt must have drawn Mordred’s attention.
He reached down to it with his free hand. Shaina held her breath. Do it, she urged silently. Try and take it.
He touched it.
And screamed.
Recoiling wildly, Mordred staggered backward. He clutched his singed hand to his chest. In the same instant, her father moved. She wasn’t surprised; she’d sensed he was more alert than he was letting Mordred see. But what he did shocked her.
He threw her the flashbow.
She caught it instinctively. Expected it to sear her, as it had Mordred. No one could touch an armed flashbow except the warrior.
Instead, it felt alive in her hands. An extension of her, part of her, ready, obedient. And when Mordred moved, clutching the disrupter in his uninjured hand, it snapped into targeting position on her mere thought.
“You think to scare me?” Mordred said. “The entire galaxy knows no one can fire that thing but him.”
“And yet I am holding it, as you could not.”
Something Lyon had said flashed through her mind.
. . . he has prepared you for this, every day of your life, even if he kept from you your true destiny . . .
She knew her education had been different. All were required to learn at least rudimentary fighting, for self-defense and in case of future attack, but her training, along with Lyon’s, had been much more intense. She had always assumed it was simply that she had been raised with the prince, and was taught what he was taught simply because they were inseparable. But now, suddenly, and belatedly, she realized her father had been in fact preparing her all along, without telling her, for the future he had concealed from her. He had made sure she knew what she needed to know; it was merely the final, irrevocable knowledge he’d withheld.
Who would know better what you are facing? The rest of us know only the glory, he knows the danger, the blood, the pain, the weariness. What father would not want to protect his child from that as long as possible?
Lyon’s words had only irritated her before. She had still been too angry to hear any defense, any justification.
Now, as she faced the man who had helped nearly destroy her world, she finally understood. He hadn’t wanted the choice forced on her before she was ready to choose.
“Put it down,” Mordred ordered.
“I think not.”
He aimed the disrupter at her father. “Put it down or I will kill him right now.”
The energy in the bow seemed to course through her and back into the gleaming silver weapon, as if it were some natural circuit completed at last. Her gaze flicked to her father. He was weak, she could see that, from the firing and the disrupter hits. But he was up on one elbow, looking at her. In the eyes that were the original of her own, something new glowed. Acknowledgment. Encouragement. Pride. Acceptance.
And love.
And she knew, in some newly awakened part of her, what he was telling her. She could fire it.
“The likes of you to take out the greatest flashbow warrior in history? I think not,” she said again.
“I said put it—”
“For Trios,” she whispered. And fired.
A surge of almost unbearable power shot through her. The clap of thunder and the explosion echoed around the tunnel.
Mordred vanished. Vaporized.
She lowered the weapon, for a moment just staring at the blackened spot where the man who had helped nearly destroy her world had once stood. She wondered vaguely if she was truly stunned, or if it was just by comparison to that incredible surge.
And then she ran to her father.
Chapter 50
“THE FUSION CANNONS are in position. Manned by those who at least remember how to fire them.” Tark’s voice was brisk as he laid it out for them. “We have a troop ready to head for the pass, a larger one to go through the tunnel and come up behind the main Coalition force.”
Dax nodded. Standing beside him, Rina looked him up and down once more. He was bloodied, charred in spots, and looked a bit worse for wear, but he was upright and coherent. She would rather he got some rest, but they’d gotten word the Coalition was moving again, not waiting for nightfall this time.
She wasn’t sure of the details of what had happened up on the mountain, but knew when Lyon had flown the fighter back and Shaina had brought her father back in the rover that it had been anything but routine.
“Mordred,” was all Lyon said, telling her he didn’t know much more, since neither Shaina nor Dax were talking just yet.
“He’s dead?” she asked him.
“Very.”
And the moment she saw Dax and Shaina together, she knew that whatever anger had been left was gone. She had helped him out of the rover almost tenderly, and he had let her, Rina guessed, not so much because he needed the help but because it was his daughter come back to him and he would not easily let her go again.
And yet, Rina thought now, let her go he must. For the Coalition was returning, in even fuller force this time, on two fronts, and this time the war would end in victory for one side. Galatin, and thus Arellia, would fall back
under the yoke of their tyranny, or would hold fast and drive them out once more.
And upon that outcome hinged the fate of Trios.
They had to stop them here. While she knew Trios to be much more prepared, if the Coalition triumphed here, they would not bother to fight Trios, they would simply destroy her. Likely from a safe distance. They would count the loss of her resources as the price for making sure she would never inspire another rebellion.
“The pass isn’t covered by the cannons, so they will likely send fighters in there,” Tark said.
“I’ll handle that,” Dax said.
“You are well enough to fly?” Tark asked him.
Rina knew Ardek had treated his wounds, but they had to still pain him. But she also knew better than anyone how strong willed this man was, and ignoring pain was something he had learned long ago.
“I’ll fly, my friend,” Dax said with a grin as Tark studied him assessingly. “Odd having it reversed, isn’t it?”
Rina smiled, guessing he was referring to the time when it had been he himself assessing the young Tark’s fitness to fight.
“All right, then,” Tark said. “Dax will provide air cover.”
If anyone thought it preposterous that one man in a single fighter would hold off who knew how many Coalition aircraft, they said nothing. Such was the reputation of Dax here. And it had only been enhanced by the fact that the new statue stood pristine and untouched while every building around it had taken damage.
“If you’re going to use that invisibility function, make sure we have your ID frequency so we don’t shoot you down by accident,” Tark said.
Dax laughed. “Now that would be an ignominious ending.”
“Kateri?” Tark asked. “Are the watchers ready?”
“We will take the pass, to hold them as long as possible. We are one hundred strong now, known fighters all.” The woman might not be as young as she’d been, but she was tough, and strong, Rina thought. She would do.
“I scouted the pass on my way back,” Lyon said. “There is a point just here”—he pointed to the spot on the holo projection—“that, with a bit of explosive help, could become a choke point.”
Tark nodded. “I know this spot. You plan to take the rock face down?”
Lyon looked at Kateri, inclining his head respectfully. “If you will accept my assistance.”
The woman looked surprised, and then smiled. “You are a true prince, Your Highness.”
“I am but Lyon,” he said.
Rina smiled. He had his father’s charm and charisma indeed. She stole a glance at Shaina, who was watching him with an expression Rina had never seen on her face before. Dax was watching them both. He’d worked it out. When he felt her gaze and turned, she saw in his face that he, too, was happy with the future of Trios he saw before him.
“Will Dare be pleased?” she whispered to him.
“Yes,” he answered. “He knew it just as I did.”
“I will go with you,” Shaina said to Lyon.
Tark glanced at Dax, who nodded. “I had something else in mind for you.”
Shaina looked curiously at her father, but then turned to look at Tark. “Sir?” she said, as respectfully as Lyon had spoken to Kateri. Rina was proud of them both.
“The main force. You know the way to and through the tunnel. And it is no small thing to have you with them. They will rally to you.”
She looked back to Lyon. “He is right,” he said. “I am an unknown to them, except for my name. You are the daughter of Dax, who fought beside them, who helped lead them to victory. They see your face every day, in that statue on the square.”
Dax rolled his eyes at Rina. She smothered a laugh.
Shaina looked at her father again, as if expecting him to protest his girl going into danger. Dax smiled at her, but it was a smile full of the ache of a father’s heart when he knows he can no longer protect his child’s every moment.
“We seldom have the luxury of choosing our path when the world hangs in the balance, Shaina,” he said softly.
“You are right,” Shaina said. “I will go with them.”
Dax looked a little surprised at her lack of protest. Rina elbowed him. “I told you they’d grown.”
“A lot in a hurry,” he said under his breath. “I didn’t know when my girl left Trios I would next see her like this.”
Rina smiled at him. Dax looked from her to Tark and back.
“You are bringing him to Trios when this is over, aren’t you?”
She felt herself flush, but her lips curved into a small smile. “I certainly intend to try.”
“Then it’s as good as done,” Dax said.
She hoped he was right. That they would all survive to go home to Trios.
She hoped when this was over, there would be a Trios left to harbor them.
RINA WALKED through the outer chamber, assessing the people as she went. Those cowering in the corners, many weeping, she ignored except for a reassuring smile. Those sitting quietly she judged by their expression; the blank stares were of no use, but those appearing angry she made note of. Even those whose faces appeared full of despair, for despair could be turned with the right words, the right motivation.
Those on their feet, or pacing, she took special note of, for those could be driven to motion by the need to do. Something. Anything. And that was what they needed right now.
Many of them were young, barely more than children. But they were chafing at being held here. She heard the mutterings about what they would do, how fiercely they would fight, if only they were allowed.
And it might come to that, if the message the low-flying scout ship had sent was accurate.
“What is happening?” several asked her as she passed.
“Reports are coming in now,” she said. “There will be news as soon as we’ve sorted it all out.”
When she returned to the tactical room, Tark was pacing its length himself. She knew he hated this, being here instead of out there. In fact, judging by his glower, she guessed he’d like nothing better than a good hand to hand just now.
He stopped when she came in. And the glower faded as that slow smile she had come to love even more than the flashing grin curved his mouth at the sight of her. For a moment she allowed herself the pleasure of knowing it was for her, but only a moment.
“What did you find?” Kateri asked.
“About half will be of little use,” she said. “But the rest, there is some potential. Some, I think, are getting there, by the simple fact that the first attack was repelled. That little foray of yours inspired many.”
Rayden grinned, but Tark shrugged it off. “And the rest?” he asked.
“If you want those ready to fight right now, I’m afraid you’re looking at the young ones. Many of them are fired and ready.”
“They feel they are invulnerable, at that age,” Kateri said. “Death is but a concept to them.”
“And I would be loath to use that and have them face the reality,” Tark said. “But I will, if I must.”
Rina hated to think of what that would do to him, that it would add another layer to the scars that were not visible. But Tark was a warrior, and needs must.
“Will you talk to them?” she asked.
He grimaced. “I’m no speechmaker.”
“I think you’re wrong,” she said. “But even if so, you are the hero of Galatin still, and again. They will listen as if you are the greatest orator since the Creonic Age.”
She saw his reluctance, but still he stepped out into the chamber. Quiet rippled out from where he stood, as the people noticed he had joined them. He grimaced again as she gestured toward the council podium on the raised platform at the front of the room. But apparently he realized that for them all to hear him, he must be
above them, and went up the double steps. Rina followed, but held back. This was his to do, and she knew it.
But if any of them so much as questioned him, or his right to lead, she was afraid she might accidentally blast them.
Tark ignored the grand, elaborate podium. Instead he stood in front of it, putting himself closer to the people crowding in, putting nothing between him and them. Glancing around the room, Rina saw it was a choice not lost on those people.
He began abruptly. “We’re holding the gates. And the western lines.”
A rousing chant of his name began. He waved them to silence. “It is those leading those fighters you should cheer. Many of you thought them crazy, or too old, and yet they hold.”
Somewhat chastened, they quieted to listen as he went on.
“Prince Lyon and our force have slowed them to a crawl at the pass, and the Silverbrakes are carving at them from behind and in the air.”
A cheer went up, but he silenced it quickly again.
“There is a cost for us in this success. The Coalition is diverting troops that were headed for the northern plain. But they are now headed directly here.”
A buzz went around the room.
“What will we do?” a voice cried out.
“We must assume their goal is to destroy Galatin. We have nothing they need that they cannot get outside the city, and it will matter little to them if there is nothing left of us but debris.”
“And it is their way,” Rina added, speaking to them for the first time. “Resistance is a personal affront. You are not allowed to stand for yourselves. They want you cowering, on your knees, and begging.”
“We drove them out once, we can do it again.” It was Rayden, who had gathered a group of his own age around him, and had been doing an effective job of stirring them up.
“We can,” Tark said. “But it will cost us. The eastern fusion cannon has been moved, leaving a break in the defenses. They will notice that gap.”
“What will you do?” a shaky voice asked, coming from, Rina noticed, one of the men who had been quivering in a corner earlier. She also noticed the difference in the question. He expected Tark to save them. And if he died in the process, would the man even care? She doubted it.
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